26: From Fired to 7 Figures: How To Fail Forward with Joey Lowery

Behind Their Success: Ep 26

Paden Joey

[00:00:00] 

Joey: If you walk into a room and you have everybody saying something about you, that doesn't build you up, you're in the wrong room.

 Welcome to Behind Their Success. This podcast is for people who are feeling stuck on their entrepreneur journey or in their careers. It's for people who want to scale and grow their businesses, learn about the power of mindset, or they just know there's more out there and they want to start making changes.

Paden: I'm Paden Squires, the host of the podcast. I was never cut out to be an employee. And when I was an employee, I was bored out of my mind. So I made a plan. I studied and passed the CPA exam in eight months while working all with the end goal in mind of quitting my job and starting my own business. I did that in 2014 and has been on an amazing wild ride since.

So now let's hear from other entrepreneurs and what mindsets and probably more important, what actions they have taken that have created and led to their success.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to behind their success podcast. I am Payden Squires, the host, and today we [00:01:00] have Joey Lowery. Joey owns a seven figure digital marketing agency called MediaShark. Their specialty is figuring out how to gain traffic online. and maybe still some of that traffic away from some of your competitors.

Joey, welcome on behind their success. Thank you so much for having me. 

Joey: Happy to be here. 

Paden: Yeah. Joey. So,you have a marketing agency there called media shark. Tell us, tell us a little bit about that business. Yeah. 

Joey: So, uh, I got started weirdly enough back in, man, right before COVID happened. And it was one of those, one of those things where I didn't think I was going to be a business owner.

It wasn't in the plan. I could say, you know, obviously growing up, working sales and doing things like that, but I actually worked for another Marketing agency in Arizona. Out of respect, I won't mention who they are, but,it was working for them and it was going great. I was three years into it and really enjoying it.

And it was definitely a high level, high ticket sales situation. And honestly, I was at a digital summit, which is a marketing Tour conference that a lot of us go to and, uh, you know, are part of. And we're, we were starting to lose a lot of sales as salespeople, work for the organization and it wasn't a big organization by any means, you're a very tight niche with a family [00:02:00] style business like that.

And so basically I'm losing clients. It's obviously affected my commission. And the next thing, you know, it turned into. I'm going to wear this, at least I thought, like a red cape and I'll be Superman. I'm going to figure out why we're losing clients. Basically,because we're doing what we're supposed to or pitching.

We're doing our thing over when deliverables are supposed to be there, and we didn't really have a lot of back end on what the deliverables were and how it was actually being done. It was just more or less, we were front facing. contact. And so actually what it turned out to be was, you know, we had a huge issue with our reporting, wasn't lining up with the dashboard that we provided, let alone analytics and what we thought from a sales standpoint we were doing.

And so I actually thought I figured out what it was. And so one night I actually presented it, to pretty much the powers that be actually with a little bit of liquid courage, that night in front of the, the groups we were out, like I said, it'll summit. So we were at dinner and, uh, yeah, basically it was fired on the spot the next day and, yeah, so it was one of those things where it was kind of very eye opening.

But at the same time, I was like, you know what, I want to create a company or a name that was, I don't know, an animal that could eat their animal. So I was like a shark, and it does help them in Florida. [00:03:00] And yeah, so MediaShark kind of just started off as kind of honestly a piss me off company to them.

I didn't really think it would take off by any means. And then, um, yeah, within about a year and a half, we landed Sprint. We had Boost as a client. We've had some very large names we've worked with. but yeah, it all started kind of by getting fired. 

Paden: So it, it all came a little bit out of a pain or a, or somewhat of a, I don't know, I guess you'd call it a bad situation right there.

Oh, a hundred percent. You used it as some, uh, pure motivation. 

Joey: Absolutely. Yeah. It definitely was one of those things I can say when I got fired, I definitely went over to the hotel bar next door and was teary eyed and Jack and Coke. 

Paden: Joe, that was kind of a start in the business. Give a little more, uh, I guess about your background education or what, or I guess what got you into the marketing industry in general. 

Joey: Yeah. actually I did one year of college. Really? I realized for myself, college wasn't for me.

it was just, and I also didn't really have the whole plan picture kind of thing. My parents didn't go to college. My dad was a blue collar worker. My mom did photography. And so, uh, you know, growing up in the Midwest and Kansas city college obviously was either you're going to college, you're going to work for Ford or you join the military.[00:04:00] 

And so I was on that path in a sense of the military side anyway, and, ended up going through a pretty nasty breakup with an engagement and, took that chance and moved to Arizona. I'd always worked in sales. And so. I always believe in my opinion, if you believe in the product, you can obviously find a way to sell it.

And so, you know, I went out there and I really had no idea what I was doing in the sense I had, saved up some funds, things like that moved, like I said, moved Arizona had no, I've never actually been to the Phoenix Scott sale area prior to that. And so for me, honestly, it was kind of one of those things where it was like.

25, 24, just taking a chance and throwing the dogs in the car and drugging them with natural things. but yeah, I got them rested and drove all the way out there and really it was just applying to random jobs. So when you say, Hey, what got you into marketing? Honestly, it was an application on Indeed that I just said easy application or whatever they do where it's just instant submit.

And yeah, it was completely a lucky thing to be honest with you. 

Paden: Yeah. And you know, it's, it's kind of interesting, you know, people talk about like,Oh, find your passion or what have you, but. [00:05:00] Interesting thing and I think yours is a fairly common story, is okay, you got into whatever career field it is almost by half a stance.

Like someone was hiring, you applied and you got hired, right? Yeah. Um, but really what creates a passion and what develops your skill in those areas is. Just doing the work, right? Starting to get into the work, starting to figure some things out in the different digital marketing space. Right.

And that's actually where you find a lot of people's passion actually develops. Like you don't find 

Joey: passion. You almost develop passion. I can agree with that a hundred percent. I mean, I think marketing and sales definitely hand in hand. So I definitely have the background and passion for sales going into it.

But there was a, I don't know. There's a complication with marketing and analytics and, figuring things out and it's ever changing world that there was something new and fresh that I liked about it versus sometimes I don't wanna use the word being stagnant, sometimes we get so built up in the process of our jobs and things like that, that, maybe I wouldn't say our passion, but our, our comfort level is built into that.

And I definitely did not enjoy that type of job for sure. So marketing definitely worked out. 

Paden: Yeah. You know, and you, [00:06:00] you find that with lots of different entrepreneurs, me as well. It's like, we kind of get that shiny object syndrome, or the stagnant, like you're, you know, it's, it's tough.

Like entrepreneurs are people that want to start and do new things, create chaos, but like really to have higher levels of success, right. You got to focus on that. which can be really tough for those types of personalities, right? You're 

Joey: always looking at the next big opportunity. Yeah. And I think that's one aspect of entrepreneurship that I think that they don't tell you enough about is that you can't have the shiny object syndrome, cause you will chase everything that's around the corner.

And I've read into that with myself, my buddies, even coaching seminars, things like that. There's always something to be chased and there's always an opportunity that there's, you know, a greener pasture around the corner. I think sometimes we forget that there's also a higher water bill potentially as well.

Paden: Right. Yeah. I was listening to a podcast just yesterday, from Alex Ramosi if you don't ever listen to him. Yeah. He's fantastic. But he talks about like the woman in the red dress, Always being distracted by the woman in the red dress and that.even as you become more successful, say in your business and [00:07:00] start making more money and bigger clients and what have you, as you become more successful, there's, you start to spot even bigger opportunities outside of what you're doing.

And so those opportunities never go away, right? Say you're making 10, 000 a month, you'll start spotting another 10, 000 a month. Opportunities out there that are always trying to distract you. And it's always a lie saying, Hey, um, you know, if you come over here, you'll be able to make as much money or more for less work.

Joey: Well, and I think that's one of the hardest things too, is that, you see those opportunities because you level yourself up as you level up your business as well. And I also think you can call it a sink as well. You know, you get in those situations with your friend groups, your people, sometimes I don't use the word spouse, you guys have to level up sometimes together.

You know, you run into situations where, You find as much as a certain type of distraction opportunity could be good or bad. And I've definitely seen that a lot too, where you level up your friend group, people you're associated with, your business, things like that opportunity. A leveled up situation can take you there.

And sometimes I think there's a famous quote, you know,but your potential will take you places your character can't go. And so there's that [00:08:00] aspect that applies, but also I've had to learn to specifically make sure to stay out of trouble in regards to, being too relaxed or getting too comfortable with people that, or businesses that are on the same level as well.

Paden: And I think that optimism when you have something, when you're seeing those outside opportunities, right? Like you think you see that and think, Oh man, that's going to be easy. That's a great opportunity where I can make a bunch of money and maybe not have to do as much work.

But the reason you think that is because you don't know all the problems in that business. You think you do, right? Like you think I'm going in, I, Oh, I can do sales and marketing, obviously. Right. But There's other problems there that you're probably not equipped to solve or 

Joey: know there even exist there.

Absolutely. It's funny So like I work with a lot with lawyers dentists and chiropractors and I always call them the one man team and they I say this respectfully if anybody's listening, that is, in this, these fields, a lot of them, graduate, they go to, the school, they get out and they're ready to become the business owner, but their profession first off is that, where they went to school and how they, became the doctor that they are now.

And then they go into now, Oh my gosh, now I'm a business owner as [00:09:00] well. And it's the exact same that I realized was like, Hey, I can do this marketing stuff all day long. But then I realized I was a marketer. Owning the business now competing for clients against other marketers. It was like, guess, playing in the NFL for the first time.

And you, I had no idea that these other guys are, the big boys in the league that I'm, you know,but he goes back to the thing. You're right. Absolutely. You just, there's always a lot that goes on. Plus, what you think you're good at. 

Paden: Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, you know, the, in my industry is very similar.

I'm a CPA and do, you know, I have an accountancy firm, And I'm well firm, but, uh, it's the same thing, right? you think sales and marketing is really the issue or, sales and marketing, why, while it's important, that's not really the issue. A lot of the issues are recruiting, and talent acquisition because the whole business revolves around that, often if you're good and can, you're a competent worker, like sales and marketing is not the problem.

at least in my experience, but it's recruiting. And that's what I say is like, you jump into an industry and think, Oh, sales and marketing is the issue. On it. And maybe not be, there's this whole other issue that, like recruiting and 

Joey: retention is a whole lot [00:10:00] bigger. That is, I think the nightmare of the world right now is that recruiting aspect.

I've seen it nonstop, let alone learning how to recruit the rules around things, picking people. And you think, because you see something in somebody, you're like, man, that person's going to work out perfectly. And then there are a total. And then the person you don't think is going to be there is next thing you know, you're like, Oh my gosh, I'm actually blown away by you.

but the recruitment aspect is definitely the thing that I would agree with you. A hundred percent. It fuels the business in a way that you don't know that the tank is empty and then you really see it take off or struggle or fail because of that issue. And usually sometimes it's too late or you didn't even see it while it's happening.

Paden: Yeah. Yeah. Recruiting, you know, recruiting, hiring and firing, ultimately is a really tough business because it's a matter of like, you know, people interview and most people interview pretty well, right? they show up with their best face.so trying to, you know, you really don't know how somebody is going to work out until they get thrown in the fire.

There's some things you can do. I mean, like we were really heavy on, a couple of different personality tests that we screen everybody through. Um,that is [00:11:00] pretty, uh, one that we've talked about and used quite a bit on the podcast is called culture index, a very powerful tool to give you insights into people and it's,it's wild.

Pretty how accurate it is having somebody go through that and reading back, there's about five or six different data points in the culture index. And you give me just a chart with those data points on there. I can tell you a whole lot about a person without ever meeting them. That's pretty cool. Yeah.

Yeah. That's cool stuff. So, tell us what's the best decision you've ever made along your entrepreneur journey. I 

Joey: Honestly think firing quick and that's, I hate saying it like that, but that's, I'm very much a pessimist or pests. I'm very pessimistic when it comes to certain things about being proud of certain things that we've done just because I think Do you know, could we have achieved it faster?

Could we've done things way differently, avoided certain pitfalls, things like that, not even just the business, maybe myself internally or just the team. letting go somebody way faster than I planned on it, actually came back to be a huge benefit. To us. I'd say sometimes maybe even the [00:12:00] issues where we've had pitfalls, sometimes as a business, even losing clients was because it wasn't the right person in the right position.

But because let's say I like the person, they were good. There was great energy. They brought random things that seemed to put makeup on the situation, actually, Yeah. Caused a lot of the other business issues we had. So I'd say that, and then I think also too, is honestly just really being willing to jump in with the fire.

I signed up and started doing some stuff with digital summit again, as a separate company, obviously it's my company now not working at, as a vendor for, the company that fired me and just being willing to take chances and, get up on stage and now speak, and that led to a, actually a year of, traveling around the country, speaking on digital marketing, just.

Really being able to fail forward, I guess, would be the best thing. So I can tell you this couple of videos I saw myself speaking. The first time was terrible. You would have thought I was speaking to an audience that spoke no English in the way that I, my delivery was, I mean,obviously it wasn't as terrible as I felt it probably was, but it was terrible in my opinion, 

Paden: Yeah. And you can't be any good if you're not terrible [00:13:00] first, right? that's 

Joey: true. Yeah. fire mold you. And I think that's, 

Paden: That's key. Yeah. and there's two things there, right? one is your, you're just willing to put yourself out there. just having the courage to do that is willing to, Hey, I'm going to go out of here.

I don't know what I'm doing. Probably going to make a fool of myself to some degree, but like we, as internally, we probably make a whole lot bigger deal out of that than certainly anybody externally does. but yeah, no, it's the same thing. I've started this podcast. I can imagine in a year from now, I'm going to go back and look at some of these first 20 episodes and think, wow, that was garbage, but it really wasn't right.

I was doing the best I could at the time. And of course, as you develop and do more and more of these things, you're going to get. 

Joey: better at it. Yeah. So I have this weird, I don't know, analogy that I always think about, it's called, I call it the airplane effect. when you're sitting on the airplane and you're up there, with whatever X amount of passengers, one, you're, you are so worried about the turbulence, whatever's going on up there, does something sound weird or whatever?

let alone, anybody who's on the ground looking up at you. Thanks. That [00:14:00] you're just nothing in a sense. It's just, Oh, there's an airplane, not realizing it's filled with 200 real people with their own separate lives and families and destinations and dreams and journeys, that they're on.

And yet, I think sometimes we get so caught up in real life, like forgetting that, there's so much stuff going on around us that, sometimes the actions that we do may seem. Entirely huge to us. the sense of us looking down at the world from the airplane and it's all these homes, the opposite effects happening 

Paden: there 

Joey: also, I like that.

I guess this is my whole point with the airplane effect. There are so many people that just don't take action. Period. That, when we're overanalyzing our podcasts or YouTube or videos, things like that, do we look good, sound good, whatever, the amount of people that aren't putting out any effort at all, that's in fact, just the fact that we just did it, is a night and day changer compared to the person who, you know, or the procrastinator, the person who just says, I'm going to do it or just doesn't do it at all.

Paden: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point. Yeah. and it's, I'm trying to think of that quote I've heard. It's something like, um, You know, you're worried about what [00:15:00] everybody else thinks while they're intimidated by your potential. I butchered that quote, but it's something like that. It's like, you're so worried about looking so terrible.

Why other people are looking at you think, man, that guy has it all put together or whatever.it's a really, an interesting, 

Joey: I think that's one of those cute points right there. Is that 

if you walk into a room and you have everybody saying something about you, that doesn't build you up, you're in the wrong room.

Because I can tell you, I've never met a successful person. Don't get me wrong, excuse my language, there are some assholes out there for sure. but for the most part, you're never going to meet somebody who does better than you, has, put in the effort, takes the courses, done the thing, put the effort in, that's not going to look at you and say, good job.

Proud of you. How many, how much more are you going to do next year? Are you going to try to beat me because you feel this fire and then, but what you realize is when you walk into the wrong scene, they'll bring up how you look on a video or how you sound. I just got over a cold recently and I can, I already know my voice.

I was actually thinking about that in my head already. And I'm like, it doesn't matter. when it comes down to it, maybe not. But the truth is, if I was to walk into a room with somebody who. [00:16:00] Whatever you put the effort to be on a podcast or even put the effort to be out there, they're going to have opinions that really don't matter at all.

Paden: Yeah. And it's, um,people in front of you that have accomplished more of you are generally never going to criticize you for trying and they're not looking at are at your level or maybe, or feel like they're even behind you. There are the ones generally that are going to criticize you for what you do or what you're trying to do.

Joey: Right. and those people ahead of you, they're not looking back at you. You think they are judging you. they got their own people there and that's in front of them. I've had a lot of cool success and had some opportunities to meet some very unique people, especially in the marketing field, such as click funnels.

one of my buddies actually, I don't know if he's still doing it, but he was the main Tik Tok guy for Hermosi. And stuff like that. And so, you know, through some different connections, I got to meet some really cool people. But, the cool thing is you get in these rooms full of people that are, and sometimes these all stars in their own way, shape or form, they're going to give you more help than you've ever wanted.

And in fact, a lot of times it's free. Whereas, you meet someone who's behind you and I don't mean behind you, but sometimes let's say not pushing you forward or not, they don't want to see you succeed. [00:17:00] They're going to either sometimes charge you, or give you the worst advice because they don't want to see you succeed.

And you just have to be so aware of that. 

Paden: and because they're not ahead of you, that advice may not be any good. You got to be very careful. You're taking advice right now. Like if you want to be really good at basketball, make sure you're taking advice from somebody that's good at basketball, not your mom.

your mom has your best intentions at heart, but she doesn't know anything about basketball. So it's so important. Like who is the person speaking to you before you just Believe in swallowing anything. Anybody give you, 

Joey: and I'm sure you can speak to this in your profession as well. We see it all day long.

I call it, us, our goal when we created me a shark is that we'd be different, when it came down to giving advice, we may not have the largest bill, or maybe it would be, we don't know, just completely depends, but it would be. Taylor to what you need and what you are trying to accomplish, but we're also not going to hold back and tell you that, Hey, we need to fix these nine things before we even think about option 11, from the marketing world right now, it's very much the Wolf of Wall Street in the sense of there's a lot of, I call them the 25 year old divorce coaches [00:18:00] that are, they never even been married, but yet they're out there giving advice on how to do this, how to make a million dollars.

Yeah. 

Paden: in 20 days, 

Joey: exactly. Yeah. And, but a lot of it right now, what we see is, up and down. You see a lot of business owners and people that are really struggling too, because I wouldn't say the market's doing amazing necessarily, but we see a lot of issues where someone's struggling.

And the first thing a company says as a marketing agency is, Hey, you know what? You need to go out and spend money, spend ads, do this, do that. And they don't realize that there are nine other factors that they need to be doing to make sure they're ranking locally, doing some stuff on the side.

And again, for that agency, they just, they see it as a numbers game or cashing checks. They're giving advice, knowing that. Hey, we're going to get another person like this in two or three months, but at least we can milk them for what it's worth. And then they're going to be out anyway, because the prior business wasn't going to make it anyway.

And we see that all day long and it's just shitty advice. To somebody who's already in shit and they don't get, yeah. 

Paden: I think that's an issue where you see a lot of that on the internet, right? Where you get people that are really good at,attracting traffic and whatever, and they're not, they're just [00:19:00] building all these transactional type relationships and they're not necessarily building a brand or building a company.

They're very good at sales and marketing. but. Actual quality of the product and the follow through. They always have to be good at sales and marketing because they're losing clients out the back door. 

Joey: Absolutely. Oh yeah. And that's, that's, yeah, there's definitely a dance there for sure on both of those sides.

Paden: Yeah. Interesting. So Joey, what's, uh, what's one big mistake you've made, in your business and journey? Yeah. 

Joey: I would say honestly, it was not staying up to date with a lot of the technologies and opportunities that are out there. I think as a business owner, we had an opportunity, like I said, we worked with sprint and boost.

That was amazing. And, uh, they definitely put us in a seven figure position very quickly, which was amazing. but at the same time, it wasn't staying up to date with the, with the new. Whether it's dashboard reporting, the new trends are what, what someone's looking for a hundred percent, we got pretty stagnant in the ways that we were doing business.

And I think that one of the biggest mistakes that we made was that we just didn't stay updated or up to date with some things. And that's, that's a hard thing to look at because you just don't know it until it [00:20:00] starts happening. And you realize that, Hey, there's greater products around you that you can be serving your clients with and making sure that you're staying focused on the opportunity to serve.

and even though we may have felt that we were serving correctly, we probably weren't serving at the best of our abilities and making sure that we were staying open and aware of opportunities that are around us that could be serving that client better in the sense of reporting, whatever it could be, period.

So I think that was definitely one of the big ones. 

Paden: Yeah. And that's, you know, that's tough. a very similar thing in my industry, right? Like everything's, and it's probably generally every industry, like everything's constantly changing, right? In my world there's constant new tax legislation and different opportunities for tax planning and whatever.

and yours, it's, Google changes their algorithm, what, like every day or whatever it is. I don't even want to talk 

Joey: About that. It's worse than dating apps. I'll say that. You just, you don't, yeah. 

Paden: Yeah. So it's just like, it's, it's a constant battle, but as entrepreneurs and, to bet, as you said, the best serve people, like we have to be constantly learning, We have to be in a constant state of figuring things out because nothing's [00:21:00] stagnant. And like you said, if your company stays stagnant, you're not, you're not growing, you're dying. And you're also not serving your clients to the best of your ability. 

Joey: Yeah. And I also, I'll add to that too. I think of the one, the other thing that I think of.

A lot of companies make mistakes, again, I get blessed. My team gets blessed to work with a lot of different companies, brands, small, big, whatever. The one thing that I have seen consistently that whether from us or other brands is that they're not constantly asking for new business. You know, in a sense of not just with the aspect of, Hey, I'm going to, you know, reach out to more people, but upselling, if someone likes you and they trust you and then there's opportunity, whether it's upsell of, Hey, can you refer us somebody that, you know, or trust or whatever, or is it one of those things where, Hey, we, we have an opportunity, we could, actually do this for you guys, for an additional fee, whatever I failed to realize in the early part of the business was.

Yeah. Once you're in with a client and there's trust there, they will advocate for you around every corner, but you have to push them to advocate for you. it's almost like you have to give them the opportunity. Yeah. and again, it's reminding them, Hey, [00:22:00] I'm not the biggest. And we actually had a client the other day that we were working with and we're a seven figure agency, which is awesome.

But you know, a lot of times people don't realize that, that, that doesn't mean we're, The big boy on the block, we're also, we take on a certain amount of clients we work with and we're happy with that. But again, that being said, could we always grow and expand a hundred percent?

But right now that's our thing. But when it comes down to it, it's like, okay, you know, are we asking those clients currently? Like, Hey, could you refer somebody? We were doing great with you guys. Is there someone like you guys? And being honest with one of the clients that we work with now, and they're, they're awesome.

They've been with us over two and a half years. We had a situation and we told them, we're like, Hey, look, we have the opportunity to bring on their client. Like you guys are in a governmental space, so they're very unique. And they're like, actually my buddy's a lawyer and I'd like, and it was a personal thing.

He referred to this friend of his, but man, their characteristics and just their business. Because obviously these guys were friends. it was crazy that literally it felt like we were working with, This company again, and I don't know what it was, but it was being honest with him and saying, Hey, we're at the big age on the block, but just again, being vulnerable [00:23:00] as a business and taking the risk of either asking for business or asking for an additional sale opportunity, man, I just think it can do wonders for your business that you just don't even know.

And statistically speaking, if you were able to do that a hundred times a month and you could increase your overall, it's called a product sale service, whatever by 10, 10 percent every month, what your business could look like in a year could be totally different than now.

Paden: Yeah. Yeah. And you just let that compound out. yeah, I mean, you know, five years, your business is a totally different business. Yeah. And you know that I would say that's something I struggled with as well. I'm asking, you know,it was insane as I waited seven years into running my own practice before I asked anybody for a Google review.

What? Oh man, that's crazy. And you know what? And once I did it, within like two months, I had, I don't know, 50 reviews because I, I built all these good,all this goodwill with all these different clients. And, of course I got my email list and emailed, a hundred of them or whatever.

I'm like, Hey, if you had a great experience, let me review. And that was [00:24:00] absolutely game changing. 

Joey: it's me. 

Paden: Yeah. 

Joey: It's crazy. what SEO can do, you know, But, butagain, you have to bite the bullet of almost getting outta your head and being like, Hey, this is a process I have to ask.

Paden: And it's willing to do that. Once again, it's what you're almost like. While it's not a big deal at all to ask somebody for a Google review, you still feel like, Oh, I'm putting myself out there. I might get rejected or whatever. Like it's always doing that.

And if you ever study or read anything about sales, it's like, I don't know, some incredibly high percentage of salesmen. I don't know, something like 60 percent of the time don't ask for the sale at the end of the presentation. Like they don't even ask for it and wonder why they don't close much.

And when, when most sales like happen after four or five asks, 

Joey: And that's the thing is, so I had a sales boss that I thought was amazing. He was definitely very influential when I was growing up in high school. but he used to go there.

Hey, there's two parts to every sale. There's getting the sale and then there's getting referrals or the next thing up. And we always kept it in the back of our mind. It's like, how, how do we make sure we get both sales more or less, [00:25:00] making sure we get, level off and get what we need, but then maybe getting referrals, getting something.

And it is a game changer, and I think you can apply that a lot to even your life too. It's just not settling. It's just like, Hey, how, how can I go a little bit further in something and just, maybe get a little bit more out of my comfort zone. can I spend five more, more minutes on the exercise machine, pushing myself, just again, one more 

Paden: constantly expanding yourself.

great book out there by Ed, my lab, you ever listened to my lab, the power of one more. And it's all about that mindset of I'm supposed to do 10 reps. I'm going to do 11 and it's, The one extra rep. Okay. Does it really, it doesn't matter in any given set. But letting that compound and let that compound with that mindset.

Pretty amazing how that stuff stacks up. Yeah. And 

Joey: you don't, you don't see it until maybe, you know, the, the, let's call it the fire has been burning for a little bit. And then you realize you might have a bonfire going rather than just a campfire. 

Paden: Yeah. And it's always like the compounding thing.

I'm working heavily in money and always thinking about compounding and humans don't [00:26:00] understand compounding like naturally at all.but compounding starts ever so slowly. And then you get several, you get seven, eight years down the road. that, that delta and that growth gets massive and then you get 15 years down the road and you don't even recognize, And those are even long time periods.

Many things are much faster than that. But like the compound effect of things, people just don't understand. Yeah. they overestimate what they can do in a year, but way 

Joey: underestimate what they can do in five or 10. Absolutely. And that's the thing too, I think as an entrepreneur, as, and I actually do a lot of help with, people that are starting new businesses and things like that.

Cause I'll say one of my biggest enjoyment is helping people. Those who are, you know, cause I just wished there was someone there when I was there, it's first trying to figure out and fail, and on my own, but that being said, I think one of the hardest things, is the opportunity of vision is realizing that, it can happen overnight, but, and I really believe this, can you do a million dollars in a year as a brand new business?

Yes, obviously there's a lot of stipulations around what's at product services, things like [00:27:00] that, but what you can achieve, it can statistically be broken down, in some type of numerical situation or equation. Now, you may not want to do all that work, but it can be broken down. So the problem that I think you run into is like you said, you could bust your butt for a year, and hit these numbers you want to, but what could that five, 10 year look like?

And I think that was one of our issues too, is that, we let us some very large business businesses, which is awesome. Got us on the record, got us being a very large, on paper agency. still very, unique in the sense of, as a boutique type agency, but large on paper.

And then what happened was it's like, all right, great. Do we want to grow whatever? And that's where it just, again, what's the vision? What's compound look like? 

Paden: yeah. That's great. That's good stuff. So Joey, what's, um, what's one piece of advice going back? So you're starting your business today and you can talk to yourself.

What's one piece of advice you would give yourself? 

Joey: I think find out exactly what you're good at and you triple down on that and outsource the rest. 

Paden: That's good. Expand on that a little bit. Yeah. 

Joey: So I [00:28:00] think when the beginning was, I knew I had the confidence to obviously talk and the confidence in myself to make something happen.

That was not the issue. The issue came into the process of taxes. It came in this expansion, recruiting, building a website, doing basically everything that's outside on the backend, internal processes was not my forte by any means. Now I do believe, I always think, I use the analogy of being a cook in the kitchen.

Like I'm not trying to be the five star chef. That's not my job. What I need to do is just make sure that I know how to turn the oven on. And I, I know, based on how not to burn something. And I think that was a mistake I made in the beginning. I took on every hat and I had a really good piece of advice from a friend.

Who said, as soon as you can hire a CEO, that's what he's in. And he is 60 million plus business and himself. And so, you know, of course, in my mind, I'm like, a couple of years back, in my late twenties, I was just like, I just, I don't know, I couldn't, what, how do I hire somebody like that?

and not realizing we were on the path for that, just in the vision, just [00:29:00] didn't align for that in the sense of what I was looking at, but I also didn't realize how much more that could have boosted our business in the aspect of knowing that was off my plate. First having outsourcing HR and outsourcing, hiring just all those aspects of, like I said, tripling down on myself knowing, Hey, I know I can kill it.

In this section and being able to put the focus on that area, but then trusting the processes and trusting, in the system that is provided to handle this other area. 

Paden: Yeah. And that's, that's great. I mean, that's a mistake you see a lot. And, one that I certainly did. There's a great book out there.

I think it's Dan Martell. I think it's his name. it's called buy back your time. Okay. And it talks about The mistake people make, like the mistake I made was, okay, I'm an accountant, CPA, I work with clients, I'm wearing every hat, right? Small business. but what's the first thing I do is like, Oh, I go out and hire somebody.

I hire somebody just like me, right? I hire another practitioner, maybe another CPA that can work with clients that do the same kind of stuff. When in fact I should be [00:30:00] hiring people. To do all the stuff that I shouldn't be doing, not necessarily hiring myself again, right? Cause that way I'm, I still got to wear all the hats, right?

I need to hire things that take all the junk off my plate so I can just run and do my thing. Well, yeah. I mean, 

Joey: That's literally what, I hate saying it when you're saying this, I'm like thinking, I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is exactly my pitch to my businesses that I try to work with. Our clients we try to work with, or, my team does yet I'm over here doing it to myself.

I'm like, Hey, I need to add more sales guys, more sales guys. And it's like, That's like me going to the agency and be like, Hey, you should, you know, hire more marketers, that we're trying to has a client, you know, or trying to convince them to outsource that, because again, that's sometimes maybe they're where their issues are.

They get to wear all the hats too. That's good. Yeah. No, exactly. 

Paden: Joey, how can, uh, what's the best way people can connect with you, man? company media shark, you're down in the St. Pete, Florida area. What's the best way people can connect with you or interact? 

Joey: Yeah. So, uh, obviously the company, go media shark.

com is our website. a lot of people actually, I get a lot of hits or messages. If it's more. More on the personal side. you just follow [00:31:00] that marketing guy on Instagram. And so, yeah, but I love to connect no matter what. It's always one of those things. If you listen to this and you got questions on something and, or even if you're starting a business and you're like, Hey, should I do this or that love to, so, you know, there's some stuff your way and hopefully it works out for you 

Paden: Joe, I appreciate you coming on the show, man. It was a great episode. You provided a ton of value here to listeners. and we appreciate you, man. Listeners. We'll see you in the next episode.

Joey: Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you found it valuable, please rate review and share it. That is the best way to help us build this and reach more people as we're trying to accomplish our goal of helping create more healthy, wealthy, and wise entrepreneurs. You can follow us on social media by searching for me @padensquires or going to www.padensquires.com on the website and social media. We're always sharing tips of personal growth and there we can actually interact. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks guys.